Football Manager

[calgaryballer]

Manchester South

[Lanteri]

So, West Ham approached me in November with an offer. After careful consideration I've decided to leave Southampton for West Ham.

I feel I've accomplished as much as I could in Southampton considering their total lack of financial resources. The signings from the past offseason alone have really left the franchise in a state of bleeding money. Didn't have any money to improve the facilities either, which were still basically at a championship team's level.

So, yeah West Ham it is.

I'll post my selection in a few.

[Lanteri]

West Ham's squad has had very little to no turnover since the first season, so almost everyone is a familiar face for those that know anything about their 2010-2011 team.

Running a 4-2-3-1

-----------Cole-----------
G. Tulsane-Parker--Barrera
-------Noble---Collison----
Ilunga-Spence-Tomkins-Behrami
-----------Green--------------

Subs: Boffin, Ronnie Stam, Matty Taylor, Radoslav Kovac, Winston Reid, Junior Stanislas, Ahmed Kalil

Spence, Tomkins, Noble, and Collison have all developed quite well.

Overall it's a pretty solid team, and Martin O'Neill was rightly fired after a 1-1-8 start to the season. Much too talented to be in the relegation zone.

[Lanteri]

Mark Hughes took over at Southampton.

And, merely 5 months after retiring, Didier Drogba has been hired as manager of Blackpool. Thought that was interesting/a little bit strange.

[Lanteri]

This guy has to be one of the sicker newgens I've ever seen:

[Lanteri]

Rough year with West Ham. There were in 19th and the relegation zone when I took them over so it's got to be considered a success to even get them out.

[Lanteri]

Portugal defeated France in penalties in the 2014 World Cup over the summer.

Oddly, Mali placed 3rd.

[guchi45]

This guy has to be one of the sicker newgens I've ever seen:

Great wonderkid.

[Lanteri]

Entering the 2014/2015 season now with West Ham.

Incoming Transfers:

CM - Raul Meireles (Free)
CB - Vincent Kompany (Free)
LB - Slobodan Rajkovic (£4.5m from Girondins Bordeaux)
RB - Jerome Boateng (£3m from Manchester City)
AML - Dentinho (£13.75m from Corinthians)

Out:

Radoslav Kovac, Ovidiu Petre, Ibrahima Sidibe, Matthew Upson, Jorge Paulo, Junior Stanislas, Matty Taylor (Free)
Winston Reid (£2.2m to Brescia)
Cyriac Gohi Bi (£2m to Blackpool)
Stefan de Vrij (£3.6m to Celtic)

Formation:

--------------Cole---------------
Dentinho------------------Barrera
------Meirles-Collison-Noble------
Rajkovic-Spence-Tomkins-Boateng
-------------Green--------------

Subs: Ruud Boffin, Adam Johnson, Ahmed Kalil, Geoffrey Tulsane, Valon Behrami, Ronnie Stam, Vincent Kompany
Injured: Scott Parker (Parker will be the starter in place of Meireles upon his return to match fitness).

[calgaryballer]

This guy has to be one of the sicker newgens I've ever seen:

I don't even know where I'd play that kid. His dribbling skills are pretty weak. Deep Lyng Playmaker style? Ball Playing Defender? So many options!

[Lanteri]

I don't even know where I'd play that kid. His dribbling skills are pretty weak. Deep Lyng Playmaker style? Ball Playing Defender? So many options!

Center mid in a defend role, anchor man, BWM-Support.

I'd probably go with anchor man TBH. With that combination of heading/strength/pace/anticipation/marking/tackling/positioning, how could you possibly beat him?

[Lanteri]

In a related note:

I think when I start my inevitable new save after the transfer window closes and SI releases their final patch, I'll probably wind up 'chising it on here instead of spamming the crap out of this thread, lol.

[Lanteri]

Started off the 2014/2015 season on an 11 match unbeaten run, racking up 9 wins and 2 draws before finally losing to Manchester City 2-1.

[Lanteri]

I've got one incoming transfer in January: Welsh international Andy King.

I've been running a 4-2-3-1 for pretty much the whole season, with Noble playing a little bit out of position as an AMC. Parker's become too slow to truly be effective as a starter, so the plan is to move Noble back to central midfield and play King at AMC.

So the selection from January forward is projected to be:

----------Cole-----------
Johnson---King----Barrera
-----Noble----Collison----
Rajkovic-Spence-Tomkins-Boateng
----------Green-----------------

Noble's role is a deep laying playmaker, which with his passing/creativity is his best spot IMO. Collison is solid enough all-around to function as the B2B.

This is how King looks now attributes-wise btw:



Not the fastest guy in the world, but I'm loving his mental attributes and his passing and finishing abilities.

[Lanteri]

So with the January transfer window inching closer to a close, I've made a couple more moves.

In:

ST - Andy Carroll for £5m from Wolves (Weird that he was there, huh?)

Out:

Scott Parker - He got mad at me for removing him from captaincy in favor of Jordan Spence, so we agreed to a mutual termination. I'm fine with it anyway since his contract expired anyway in June, and he agreed to leave without compensation.
Ahmed Khalil - £5m to Real Sociedad
Ruud Boffin - £1.2m to Aston Villa
Valon Behrami - Out on loan to Wolves with £3.6m option to buy